Chapter 1: Chapter 1: Brains
“Ahhhhh,” Norman let out an exaggerated yawn before slapping down the wet mop on the floor as he continued mopping the hallway.
His boss had called him the night before and told him he better be here bright and early or he could kiss his job goodbye. If he didn’t need this shitty low-paying job he would have told his boss to shove it where the sun doesn’t shine. Unfortunately, taxes and bills were still a thing after the apocalypse.
He finished mopping this hallway for the second time this morning and sighed.
“This is BS.”
He had been here for three hours already – per his dick of a boss's orders – and he had been made to wait. Just as Norman went to rest against the wall and the mop handle, for a bit of a break, the door to the room opened and his boss came strolling out. The balding and overweight man had the demeanor of a schoolyard bully and the beady eyes and short temper to go with it.
“Norm! Get off your lazy ass and get in there and clean the mess and store the body. And I don’t want any of your normal half-assed work.”
Norman could only silently grit his teeth because he needed this job, “yes, boss.”
A cold blast of air followed as his boss strode past in a bloody apron, some of it dripping onto the newly cleaned floor. Norman couldn’t stand that his boss had figured out magic before he had but the truth was clear to see. That didn’t stop Norman from flipping his boss off behind his back after he passed.
Norman pushed his bucket of mop water towards the coroner’s room or was it an exam room maybe a dissection room? He wasn’t exactly sure what the actual name of the room was and he didn’t particularly care.
As he opened the door, the cold air from inside hit him full on and he shivered despite wearing coveralls over his normal clothes. The coveralls were too big for him and tended to chafe and rub but his boss made him wear them anyway.
Norman figured it was just another way to make him stand out from the rest of the employees. None of the other support staff had to wear this dumb outfit, even though some had to work with the body parts and disposal.
The once clean stainless steel room had blood all over the floor and even the cabinets, where the saws and other dissection implements were kept. Norman didn’t know how a coroner could be so messy, his boss probably did it on purpose to make Norman’s life more miserable.
At least one good thing came out of the room's frigid temperatures, the body didn’t smell.
Norman turned his gaze toward the body on the table. Its chest cavity was cut open and the organs had all been removed and placed on other trays like gruesome little trophies before the cuts had been stitched back together, leaving the chest looking deflated. Even the skull had been cut open and the brain removed. The staples along the skull made Norman think of Frankenstein’s monster. Unlike most normies, Norman knew the difference between Frankenstein and his monster.
Norman didn’t know why they bothered taking all the organs out for the autopsy. It was pretty clear the two bullet holes in the man’s chest were the cause of death. But that wasn’t for Norman to worry about.
With a wet slap of the mop on the floor – partly from water partly from the congealing blood – he got to work. He needed to get this done quickly or the blood would dry on the cold floor, or worse his mop would freeze to the floor and his boss would ream him out for his incompetence. It had happened more than once before. He would probably still get yelled at even if he did a perfect job, nothing was ever good enough for his boss when it came to Norman’s work. Not that Norman gave his all towards the task. It was a job and certainly not one he particularly cared about even if he did need the money.
Norman had to empty and refill his mop bucket three times before he got the majority of the blood mopped up. Most people didn’t realize the human body held so much of the life-giving fluid. It was something Norman had come to know pretty clearly since starting his job at the morgue. It didn’t help that his boss was a disgusting slob when it came to his profession. There really was no excuse for the mess except to inconvenience Norman.
The tables had drains that led to a bucket on the floor but when Norman looked, the bucket had no more than a thin layer of blood coating the bottom. Certainly far less than should have drained into the bucket instead of all over the floor.
It took a bit of effort for Norman to get the bucket off the floor, the blood that had spilled glued it in place. With a wet popping sound, it finally came free. Norman carried it over to the sink and let it soak in the hot water while he went back to mopping.
The work was boring and repetitive but required little in the way of mental effort. At least it paid enough for Norman to keep his home. Only because the city charged him very little for his residence, unlike living inside the walls of the city. Probably because very few people were willing to live outside the walls.
As Norman was mopping around the base of the table he caught a whiff of the corpse. He instantly gagged and rushed over to the sink where he threw up a bit. He wiped his mouth and sighed. At least he had gotten to the sink this time. Having to remop the floor because he puked on it again would suck. He was getting better with the smells of putrefaction but not enough to keep his lunch down every time.
It took another hour and a few more trips to the sink before Norman finished the remainder of the mopping and had cleaned off all the bloody handprints on the cabinets. That wasn’t the end of his cleaning though. When Norman looked into the cabinets, he found bloody tools had been tossed inside with zero regards for cleanliness. Norman wasn’t the most fastidious person but this was just disgusting.
He had to empty every cabinet, clean the insides, then wash and clean all of the tools, most by hand as they were electric and couldn’t be just tossed into the sink. Although, the thought did cross his mind a time or two as he scrubbed.
Halfway through that process, he got a call. Norman fumbled his phone out, almost dropping it in the sink due to his wet hands. Thankfully that didn’t happen.
“Norman, sweety, you at work?” Charise asked sweetly as soon as Norman answered the call. Her tone instantly made Norman wary.
Charise was Norman’s thiccc with three c’s big titty goth girlfriend. Well, off again, on again girlfriend. He had to think for a bit to remember if they were on again at the moment. He concluded that no, they were not currently seeing each other, but if she was calling…
“What’s up my little vixen?”
“Oh, not much, I missed you.”
Norman knew that was probably a lie but if it meant she would invite him over, it was worth humoring her. There was a reason he kept going back to the woman.
“Oh…I missed you too, you wanna get together tonight?”
It was worth asking even if he didn’t think it was likely.
“Hmm,” she purred, getting Norman’s hopes up. “I called because I heard you’re at work and a new body came in. I’ve been experimenting with a new strain but it needs a… special ingredient.”
Charise was also his dealer which sometimes made things a bit awkward.
He was confused by the request but he tentatively asked, “what type of ingredient?”
“Oh nothing too onerous, I've been using animal brains in my fertilizer and you won’t believe the results. But I need the real deal, babe,”
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Norm shuddered at the raw sexuality she put into that last word. He glanced at the human brain just sitting on one of the trays like some macabre gelatine desert.
“Uh, I don’t know. If my boss found out, I could lose my job.” Also, what the hell kind of messed up shit was she growing that needed brains.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine. Why don’t you come over this evening for a bit of fun, hmm? Don’t forget the item.” She purred.
Before Norman could refuse, Charise hung up. He could try calling her back but he knew from experience she would just ignore his calls and if she even got his text, she would ignore that as well. He debated the ethics of stealing a brain of a dead person for about five seconds before he grabbed the small cooler that he used as a lunch box and emptied it out. It wouldn’t be the first time he stole from his boss, but even so, this felt wrong. Then again, was it? The guy was dead. It's not like the brain was going to be used for anything. It would be taken to the incinerator with all the rest of the organs. Wouldn’t it be better for it to be put to actual use?
Norman paused once more as he looked at the brain. It wasn’t the ethics of stealing from the dead that gave him pause this time, it was getting found out by his boss.
After a few more moments of wrestling with his thoughts, he worked up the courage to pick up the brain.
“Ew.”
The brain was cold and slippery in his hands. It reminded him of a bowl of thick jello. He managed to carry it over to the lunch box without dropping it. That’s when he ran into a bit of a problem. It was too large for the cooler. He tried shoving it into the cooler but it would just pop back out the other side with a sickening slurp sound that made him shiver.
He fumbled with shoving the brain into the container for a few minutes to no avail. This was taking too long. He was starting to get worried his boss might pop in and see him messing with the dead man’s organ. And Norman knew getting caught would not end well for him. Looking around, Norman got an idea.
He ran over and grabbed one of the bone saws that was drying next to the sink and hacked off the bits of the brain too large to fit inside the cooler. Surely Charise wouldn’t need the whole thing. With a click, the cover of the cooler finally slid back over the top and locked closed. Norman cleaned up the mess and threw the remaining bits of brain in his trash bag. His boss would never know since the rest of the organs would be taken to the incinerator.
Just to ensure that didn’t happen, Norman would take the remaining organs to the incinerator himself. This way nobody would notice the brain missing.
He washed his hands before walking towards the door, he stopped and slapped his forehead. In his rush to finish up and enjoy Charise’s charms, he had almost forgotten something important.
Setting his stuff next to the door, he walked toward the corpse on the table. He held his breath as he dipped a finger in the blood near the stitched cavity and used it to draw a pentagram on the dead man’s forehead.
“Exsurge anima mortuorum!” Norman spoke in Latin before pressing his hand against the dead guy's face. “Arise.”
Norman waited a few minutes for anything to happen but nothing did. With a sigh, he pulled out his notebook.
Day 687
Attempt to use Latin as a catalyst along with a blood-drawn pentagram has failed to awaken the dead. Body is brainless, possible cause of failure. Will need to test with an intact body.
Norman closed the notebook and stuck it back inside his coveralls. “Why couldn’t the apocalypse come with instructions?” This wasn’t the first time he had wondered this and it wouldn’t be the last.
After almost two full years of tests and nothing much to show for it.
How was he to know that this world wouldn’t give him a single prompt on how to succeed or that knowledge of how to bring the dead back to life was a prerequisite to bringing the dead to life? Where was the system, the wonderful blue boxes, the levels, or the stats? It was bullshit.
Norman shook the thoughts of the past away and got back to work. Dwelling on what might have been was not gonna pay the bills. He would keep trying to raise the dead, eventually, he might get there. It’s not like he could change course now even if he wanted to.
He had tried to change to a standard mage figuring at least that would be easy considering some people were making minor progress in forming spells. But every attempt Norman had made to cast what few spells people had uncovered left him reeling from severe vertigo.
Whatever rules this world worked on didn’t seem to allow you to go in another direction after a conscious choice was made. At least once you reached maturity as minors didn’t enjoy the same ability to cast magic or enhance their bodies as adults. That meant most adults got royally screwed if they picked something they had zero ability to understand, so at least Norman wasn’t alone in that mistake. The fact was that over eighty percent of people were unable to manifest a spell or body enhancement at all. So Norman actually had it slightly better than most people.
Norman did one last pass around the room to make sure it was clean. The tools were washed, dried, and put away. The body had been stored in the freezer – after his attempt to raise the dead – for later disposal and all of the organs were in the cart ready to be wheeled to the incinerator.
This was the most precarious part of his plan if you could call it a plan. He needed to get it down the hall without his boss catching him. Norman looked at the clock on his phone, it was around eleven in the morning. Norman breathed a sigh of relief. His boss should be passed out drunk in his office by this time of day. Norman peeked into the hallway, finding it empty. He pumped his fist in celebration and pulled the cart into the hallway. His celebratory mood didn’t last long though.
“Are you done fucking around in there yet?”
Norman froze as he heard his boss's voice. The timing couldn’t have been worse, Norman had just gotten the cart into the hallway when his boss came around the corner that led towards his office.
“Um…” Norman’s mind was spinning to come up with an excuse, luckily his boss spoke first, saving him from coming up with some lame lie.
“Oh, showing some actual initiative for a change. Bout damn time. Get those down to the incinerator before they start smelling up the hallway. And when you’re done in the room, do a proper job of mopping this hall, it’s a disgrace.”
“Uh… yes, sir,” Norman replied, barely keeping the relief out of his voice as his boss strode past him.
“Charise better appreciate the trouble I went through for this,” Norman grumbled quietly as he pushed the cart quickly to the incinerator before something else could go wrong.
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